Cosmic Window

Messier 1 - The Crab Nebula

BOOM! I mean literally in a sense we can’t wrap our minds around. What you’re looking at is the glowing gases leftover from an exploded star some 6,000 light years from Earth.

Chinese astronomers documented a bright “day star” in the year 1024 AD which is believed to be when this star went supernova. Since that time, it’s expanded to about 10 light years across. That’s more than twice the distance to the nearest star to us! That matter is moving!!

It’s moving so fast, in fact, that in my lifetime a visible difference has been made. That’s kind of exciting to see the gases expanding. So exciting that this is my 3rd year in a row photographing the Crab Nebula. My plan is to continue to photograph it and see if or how it changes over time.

For the geeks:
Telescope Celestron 8SE
Mount Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro
Camera QHY 268C cooled (-15 C)
Filter Antlia ALP-T

36 x 300s exposures (3 hrs total)
Processed in PixInsight, Photoshop, Deep Sky Stacker, Topaz DeNoise AI

IC 1848 - The Soul Nebula

I’ve had a few attempts at this one, but never really seemed happy enough with it to post. But I think looking back at this now, it’s at least good enough for IG? I’m rather stalled on a project at the moment (thanks, clouds) so I’m going through older data that I haven’t posted yet.

Does anyone else see this as a bison 🦬 running toward the right? Just me? Either way, I captured this beautiful nebula back in the fall using my and ALP-T filter. I’ll likely repost this later with more data that I acquired last year trying out some new techniques with PixInsight.
This photo was processed purely in Photoshop, as it was before I tried the PI world. Hope you enjoy. Keep your eyes open for a few more pics soon!

C/2022 E3 (ZTF)

I can finally join the Green Comet club! This is the result of only 48 minutes of exposure time taken from my light polluted backyard on 01/26/23. To avoid the impending clouds, I had to shoot the comet as soon as it cleared my house…resulting in it being lower in the sky than I wanted.

Still, though, the ion tail is faintly visible streaking to the right. The anti-tail is also visible directed toward the bottom left of the photo.

I hope to get another chance to shoot this comet. I learned a lot about comets, and anti-tails, as well as a ton about photographing and post processing them!

Equip/stats
William Optics Z73
Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro
QHY 268C
Optolong L-Pro

16 x 180s exposures
PixInsight, Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop, Topaz DeNoise

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Keep looking up,
JK

*All photos posted here are taken by me unless otherwise stated in captions.

P.S. This is my newest favorite space photo--the Elephant Trunk Nebula. It's a breeding ground for new stars. Check out the site here for a full description: https://www.cosmicwindow.space/ic-1396-elephant-trunk-nebula